


Observational

by skitzofreak



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Bird Watching, Canon Divergence - Everybody Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Mission Fic, based on the bolivia salt flats, both feathered and mechanical, but not exactly the same, hope you enjoy it!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-11 02:46:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15305718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skitzofreak/pseuds/skitzofreak
Summary: “Hm.” Jyn studied him even when he focused on his datapad again, pretending not to see her watching. His face was haggard, dark circles under his eyes and sand dotting his short beard. He took the occasional sip from his water canteen, but she hadn’t badgered him to eat his ration bars today, so he probably hadn’t done it. Last night was a bad night, too; he barely slept. She didn’t blame him for that one. This place wasn’t Scarif, there was little distinction between beach and water, and the trees of the jungle were very, very far away. Still, there was enough here to bring Scarif to mind. Jyn found herself hunting for the differences, as if she needed to catalogue them in order to drive as large of a wedge as possible betweenthereandhere.The birds were a pretty good start, actually.





	Observational

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ivaylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivaylo/gifts).



> A gift for Ivaylo, who deserves it.
> 
>  

“It’s kind of beautiful,” Jyn murmured, focusing the macro-binoculars carefully. At her side, Cassian lay stretched out on his stomach, his parka draped over his back with the hood up to block out the harsh sunlight. She didn’t know how he wasn’t roasting in there even with the furry liner removed, because the humidity and heat of Felucia’s southern hemisphere was oppressive even in the late evening when the sun had begun to set. The jungles of the north faded out into scrublands about twenty miles away, and here the shallow, warm Dead Sea stretched around them in every direction. The flat, reflective plain of water was broken here and there by tiny islands filled with dark green shrubs, and it was on one of these that Jyn and Cassian hunkered, watching. The Empire had a base some five or ten clicks further south, but it was impossible to approach by foot, because there was absolutely nothing for miles around to hide. Air raids were unwise, too, because this particular fortress housed a whole wing of the Empire’s newest fighters, plus some heavy duty surface to air scatter lasers.

Fortunately, the open area could be an advantage for the Alliance, too, because with the right observation post set up, watching all those fighters take off, patrol, and land was a snap. They had been here roughly ten hours and already determined a whole data drive’s worth of relevant data about flight patterns and possible maintenance issues the Alliance could exploit. The water here, for example, was only a few meters deep, intensely salty, and incredibly harsh on delicate mechanisms. Almost every fighter that landed got sprayed with the stuff when their exhaust disturbed the water, and Cassian caught glimpses of fresh water trucks trundling from landing pad to landing pad, hosing off the fighters every time they shut down. It was probably highly corrosive, which meant cutting off the water supply here even for a day or two could cause some serious issues for the Imperial fighters.

But Jyn wasn’t watching the fighters at the moment, or the sparkling water, or even her partner’s sweaty, stubborn face beneath his parka. (Well, definitely not those first two, maybe just a little bit of the third). She was watching a small flock of enormous golden birds that floated gracefully a roughly halfway between their watchpost and the fortress. The birds barely seemed to move, their long sinuous necks dipping from time to time into the water and disturbing the mirrored surface, but mostly folded over onto their brilliant yellow plumage.

“ _It_ has a wing span of three meters and a beak that looks like a rancor’s tooth,” Cassian shot her a sideways glance from his own macros. His datapad lit up his little mini-tent, turning his face an odd greenish color. Jyn wrinkled her nose at him and flicked her fingernail against his water canteen.

“Drink.”

He sighed good naturedly and picked up the canteen, downing a large gulp.

“Kay says it’s a myth that they can kill Humans with their wings,” she told him archly. “And my knife is sharper than any bird beak.”

“If it came to a fight between you and big yellow birds,” he nodded gravely, “I would bet my credits on you.”

“Thanks.”

He flashed her a quick grin, a move that never quite failed to make her heart stutter a little in her chest, and then turned back to his macros. “Moonrise is in four hours,” his voice dropped back to professional cadence. “Sunset in two. We should leave between the two.”

“When it’s darkest,” she agreed, and rolled onto her back to stretch it out a little. The gritty white sand (probably liberally mixed with dried salt from the sea) grated and burned against the back of her neck, and she pinched her lips tight to stop herself from grimacing. Cassian had stuck a bottle of sun-cream in her pocket this morning, and she had rolled her eyes, strode away, and promptly forgot all about it. And now, of course, her neck was burned.

“I wonder why they don’t fly away,” Cassian mused, his macros shifting from the fortress to the birds. The fighters weren’t going up as often as the day drew to a close. That didn’t mean there wouldn’t be night training or patrols going on, but it was pretty clear that this base was more focused on testing out their new craft than training pilots, which meant that they would fly less in risky conditions, such as darkness. Especially darkness in a place with such a weird surface, Jyn figured. The water probably reflected the stars and made it look like they were flying in open space. All well and good, until one of them miscalculated and flew straight into the water.

Could they figure out a way to weaponize that? Jyn snorted. Sure. They could flatten all rebel bases and then put big mirrors on top of them. And then tell the Empire to only attack at night, when it was the most disorienting. Excellent idea. The war was practically won.

“They’re probably used to the noise by now,” she guessed, and brushed the sand at the back of her neck as surreptitiously as possible. Her fingers were warm from the sun, but cooler than the burned skin on her neck. “Or maybe the Imps feed them.”

“They eat the little crustaceans on this water,” Cassian said, his eyebrows drawn down into a frown. “That’s why their feathers turn gold.”

She turned her head to squint at him, surprised by his sudden sharp tone.

He shook his head apologetically. “I’ve never seen the Imps care much about integrating their bases into the environment. Don’t imagine they would do it here.”

“Hm.” Jyn studied him even when he focused on his datapad again, pretending not to see her watching. His face was haggard, dark circles under his eyes and sand dotting his short beard. He took the occasional sip from his water canteen, but she hadn’t badgered him to eat his ration bars today, so he probably hadn’t done it. Last night was a bad night, too; he barely slept. She didn’t blame him for that one. This place wasn’t Scarif, there was little distinction between beach and water, and the trees of the jungle were very, very far away. Still, there was enough here to bring Scarif to mind. Jyn found herself hunting for the differences, as if she needed to catalogue them in order to drive as large of a wedge as possible between _there_ and _here._

The birds were a pretty good start, actually. “Where do they sleep at night?” She wondered out loud, and saw Cassian’s macros dip back down to the feathered creatures before moving back up to the fortress. She took a long drink from her own canteen and carefully tucked it behind her neck. The exterior wasn’t as cool as she would like, but it helped the burn, a little.

Cassian opened his mouth, and then closed it again and peered into his macros. A pair of TIE fighters whined as they rose into the clear blue air above the fort, then turned away and flew west, vanishing into the distance quickly. Cassian noted the time until they were lost from sight on his datapad, and calculated out their probable speed based on current visibility and recorded wind speeds. Jyn was more than happy to leave that particular task to him. She could do it, of course, but not half as fast as he could, and she would have to actually work the math out on the datapad instead of just doing it in her head like Cassian.

 “Probably one of these islands,” he answered after a long moment, clicking his stylus back into the datapad side. “We’ll have to keep an eye out if any of them drift this way.” He rolled to his side and fumbled with something in his pack. He took care to keep his hands out of her sight, which made her eye him with mild suspicion, until he rolled back over and set something small and white on her chest. “You might get your bird fight after all.”

She pushed herself up onto her elbows and grabbed the little white – oh. She scowled at Cassian, who returned her gaze with an entirely innocent expression. It was a little tube of abrasion gel, a cheaper form of bacta meant to soothe minor scrapes, cuts, and burns. Not a standard part of their medkit, which meant he had picked it up ahead of the mission and specifically brought it. Possibly for this exact scenario.

She narrowed her eyes and pointed her finger at him menacingly (his innocent expression turned just a touch smug around the edges), and then rolled back on her stomach and squeezed some of the gel onto her fingers. Well, it would be stupid _not_ to use it, now. It tingled against her bare fingers, and she rubbed it sloppily on the burn, bending her head down until her forehead was almost pressed into the sand.

“Here,” Cassian murmured, and then she felt his fingertips tracing softly against her skin, spreading the gel more evenly than she could manage without sitting up entirely. There was a time, not too long ago really, when she would have twitched away and insisted she could handle it herself. There was a time only slightly longer ago than that when she would have jumped to her feet with her blaster drawn if someone tried to touch her at all.

But that was then, she thought with a touch of defiance at her old, tense instincts. And this was now. Now, when she had a partner, and a home, and more importantly, someone who she could trust to fight for her, and listen to her, and never, ever hurt her.

Now, she had Cassian.

So instead of flinching or fighting, Jyn simply moved her hand out of his way and closed her eyes, arching her neck into his hand and letting out a long, happy sigh at the sensation of cool gel and warm fingers on her aching neck. His hand paused at the sound, and then resumed rubbing, slow and gentle against her skin. When the gel was spread, he moved his hand from her neck to her shoulders, kneading at muscles stiff from laying on the ground all day. Jyn felt a little wiggle of guilt in her belly – he was the one who had broken his spine eight months ago, and though the implants and the bacta treatments had him back in the field soon enough, she knew he still suffered after long stints in the dirt like this. She really ought to be rubbing _him_.

He dug his thumb into the hard knot under her left shoulder blade, and Jyn bit her lip and brought her arms up, propping her forehead on her arms and twisting to give him as much access to her back as possible.  Cassian made a low noise in his throat, a quieter version of the sound he sometimes made when she –

Ah. Jyn bit her lip a little harder and mentally slapped herself. Now was…not a good time for that particular line of thought. They were, after all, hiding in enemy territory with only a very small energy distortion field thrown over their heads to hide them (and Cassian’s stripped out parka, but that hardly counted). If the Empire found them out here, there was absolutely nowhere they could run or hide before the TIE fighters in that fortress blew them to pieces.

On the other hand, there was nothing she could do to stop the Empire from finding them aside from what she had already done…so really, what was the point in worrying about it?

Jyn closed her eyes, focused on her breathing, and just let herself enjoy the feel of Cassian’s fingers on her back. Slowly, the sunlight faded and the heat began to gentle – the humidity, of course, stayed right where it was, soppy and uncomfortable, but the heat, at least, was less brutal. Cassian pulled his hand back after awhile, but she could hear the tap of his stylus against the datapad so she didn’t mind. She stayed where she was, though, letting her mind drift, enjoying the cool bite of the evening breeze across the gel on her neck.

She probably dozed off, although she couldn’t really be sure, but she came fully awake when Cassian sat up beside her, brushing at the sand on his clothes and dropping his parka next to him.

“Jyn,” he called quietly. “Look.”

She blinked her eyes open, and stiffly leveraged up to her knees – and then froze.

Night had fallen faster than she realized, and now the sky was the dark purple of a fresh bruise, still tinged pink and orange in the northwest where the sun had vanished behind the horizon. The fortress to the south was lit up with sparse white spotlights, but the lights seemed weak and fragile against the vast darkness that surrounded it, and there was barely any light pollution at all.

Above them, a glittering galaxy sprawled like a trail of jewels, and best of all –

She could see why the TIE pilots were wary of flying at night here. The shallow ocean was perfectly still now, a solid glass mirror stretching off into infinity on all sides, and the water was a perfect reverse image of the sky above. Even kneeling perfectly still, she felt a little dizzy, as if she were standing on the edge of a great precipice, deep and dark and shining. Distantly, she could hear the faint, trilling call of the great golden birds, though she could no longer see them.

Cassian’s fingertips brushed back a strand of hair from her cheek, tenderly slipping it behind her ear before he traced a soft line down her throat to her collar. “You’re right,” his voice sounded lower and darker than usual, as if he, too, was reflecting the endless beauty of stars and sky.

 Jyn couldn’t pick out his features in the darkness, already too thick and rich, but she could see his outline picked out in the pinkish light from the dying sunset, and she could feel the solid warmth of him from only a step away.

She turned, and closed even that small distance, feeling with outstretched hands until she found his chest, his shoulders, and at last, his jawline. She cupped both hands carefully around his face, and smiled as he automatically reached for her waist to steady her against him. “How so?” She whispered, and leaned up to press her lips against the corner of his mouth. It was reckless, and a bit sappy if she was being honest. But hell with it, there was no one around to see, and no one to judge save for Cassian himself. And considering how his mouth curved into a smile under her lips, how he leaned down into her and wrapped his arms tightly around her waist, he didn’t mind at all.

“It’s beautiful here,” he said simply, and slanted his mouth to fit better against hers.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Felucia](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Felucia) is a jungle planet, but we can imagine that it has other environments too. The salty Dead Sea is based on [Bolivia's salt flats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salar_de_Uyuni) plus the actual [Dead Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea) here on Earth.
> 
> The golden birds are essentially swans, but bigger, meaner, and more yellow.


End file.
